Identifying the Problem Planning the Action

commit to user

1. Cycle 1

a. Identifying the Problem

The problems in this research refer to the difficulties in writing skill of the students. The students were not interested in English lesson; they think English is difficult. The teacher just focused in vocabulary, so the students got difficulties to make a good writing. They did not get more opportunity to write, there was a lack of time to practice writing. Not at all students do well exercises in writing because the material and teaching equipments was only from book.

b. Planning the Action

Having found the problem faced by the students, the researcher began conducting the research. First of all, she studied the syllabus of the curriculum to find out the materials of the eighth students of SMP Negeri 1 Nguter. The materials mentioned in the syllabus are descriptive, recount and narrative . In the first semester the students learn descriptive and the second semester they learn about recount and narrative . Because the research was conducted in second semester, the materials to teach were recount and narrative. Recount was planned to be taught in the first cycle. After studying the syllabus, the researcher made lesson plan for the first cycle. The lesson plans contain activities, materials, and exercises that would be conducted. The researcher used newspaper articles as the teaching and learning commit to user materials. She planned three meetings. The meeting was conducted twice a week in SMP Negeri 1 Nguter. Before doing teaching activity in class VIIIA, the researcher prepared pre- test and post-test to the students. The tests were aimed at finding out students writing skill. The tests consist of three parts; first, finding the synonym from certain word in paragraph of newspaper article; second arranging jumbled paragraphs; and the last completing some paragraphs. The pre-test was conducted on April 21 st , 2010. 1 The first meeting a Description On Thursday, 22 nd April, 2010, the researcher and the observer entered VIII A. The situation in this class was very noisy and some students were outside of the classroom. The teacher did not introduce the researcher because the teacher had introduced her in pre-test meeting. When the researcher opened the class the students looked little stiff because they were taught by the researcher as the teacher for the first time. In this meeting, she continued the teacher’s material which was about simple past tense SPT because the teacher had not finished it and the students were still confused with the material. She made a lot of examples to make the students understand the simple past tense, instead of explaining the material. After explaining about the tense, the researcher gave students exercises on it. The exercises were correcting form of verbs in some sentences. The teacher made ten sentences having incorrect verb form, then the students were commanded to commit to user correct the verb. Besides, they were also given task to make five sentences using SPT. From the discussion of the exercises the teacher could know that the students were able to identify simple past tense nominal sentences, etc and related vocabularies used for recount text. The students were active although they still made joke and walked to the classmate seat. The time was limited and the time in this meeting was almost not enough. Fortunately, she could solve the problem by helping students to discuss the answer of the exercise. The researcher closed the lesson by giving some emphasis about simple past tense. The students paid attention the researcher because they wanted to get more understanding on the materials. b Observation of the first meeting In the first meeting, two students did not join the lesson, they were Dicky and Andang. Dicky was sick but Andang did not gave reason why he did not come in that day. The students looked awkward because it was the first time for them to have the researcher as their English teacher. But this condition did not last long. The students were able to adapt to the classroom situation quickly. They paid attention to the researcher. If they did not understand the material, they asked some questions. In this meeting the researcher reviewed the teacher material about SPT because many students still confused about this material. c Reflection of the first meeting The researcher should give more attention to the students because the students still felt stiff and the researcher must adapt herself with the students. commit to user Adaptation is needed to make the teaching learning process run smoothly. It was important to review the lesson because most of the students were still confused with the previous material, Simple Past Tense. They had difficulties in differentiating the verb. Besides, she must manage her time well because she almost did not finish the material well. 2 Second Meeting a Description On Friday, 23 rd April, 2010 the researcher entered the classroom. Many students were outside of the classroom when the researcher and teacher entered the class. The researcher conducted an opening activity to lead the students to this material. The material was recount. In this activity, she asked the students if they had understood the previous lesson. Then, she introduced about the material in that day. Many students gave comment “ Apa itu, Miss? Susah gak, Miss? ” Those questions were the student’s attention to the material. They were interested in the material. In that meeting she would discuss about recount text using newspaper’s article. She distributed the newspaper article to the students. Before using the article, she explained about recount text and also explained what they should do with the article. Beside newspaper’s article, she gave the students example of recount text from the books. She asked students to analyze the example together. Then, she asked the students to find the social function, generic structures, and language feature of the text and she helped them. She guided the students to find the characteristics of that text. She gave some clues and the ways how to find it. commit to user After finding the characteristics of recount text, she led the students to discuss the newspa per’s articles. She would discuss about what the similarities and differences in newspaper’s articles and recount text. First, they found difficult vocabulary. Many students who did not know about certain word asked her. “ Miss, suspect itu artinya apa? ” she answered, “ suspect artinya mencurigai atau tersangka ”. They did not feel awkward again to the researcher. The result of the discussion before, the characteristics of recount text, was implemented in the article. In this meeting, many students gave questions to the researcher as teacher because this material was new for them. For example, they asked about what the content of the article, when it happened, etc. At 09.55 the time was over but the delivery of the material had not been finished, the researcher said that the material would be continued in next meeting. As the homework, she asked students to learn the next materials. Then, she closed the lesson and said thanks to the students. In closing activity, she reviewed the material given in that day. After the bell ringed she said goodbye, then, she left the class with the observer. b Observation of the second meeting In this meeting students got a new material. The material was recount text. The researcher took some articles from the newspaper and then discussed it together with the students to find the characteristics of recount text. They paid attention and interested in the material because students asked something related to the materials to the teacher. For example, there were some events from the new spaper’s article and the students sometimes gave comments or ask about it. In commit to user the last section of this meeting, the researcher gave students homework to learn the next materials because of the limited time, the material had not finished. c Reflection of the second meeting In the second meeting, students got a new material. It was Recounts . It needed more time to explain this material. In this meeting the researcher could not finish the material, so it would be continued in the next meeting. The students were more interactive because they did not feel awkward again to the researcher. Because the time was limited the researcher had not finished the material. In the next meeting she must manage the material and the time well. 3 Third Meeting a Description The researcher came to the class for third meeting. It was conducted on Thursday, 29 th April, 2010. In the opening activity, she reviewed the materials before. She asked students to open their article which she had given in the previous meeting. Students learnt the materials which was had not been discussed as their own homework. Then, she wanted to know who was still confused with the material. She asked, “ Have you understood with the material? ” Some of them said “ No ” and the others answered “ Yes ”. There were some students who were still confused. The researcher said that she would give more explanation before doing the new exercise. She continued to explain the material which was had been discussed in previous meeting and the students gave more attention. Next, she gave article. This article was about terror in Aceh. There are some words in the article which are printed in bold. The students were asked to commit to user find the synonym of those words. For the clues, the researcher gave the jumble answers. The next task was rearrange a jumble paragraph which given by the teacher. The second article’s title was No More Chapter of KD in Anang Hermansyah’s Life. Then, last task was completing some paragraph of the text which was gave the main ideas and some questions related to the text to help the students. When students did the exercise, the researcher moved around the class to control the class and knowing the students’ done. The students interested with the exercise but some of them still made a noisy. After thirty minutes, the researcher asked the students if they had finished their work or not yet. All students answered that they had not finished. The time for doing the exercises this day was limited. It was because the teacher had to spend some time to give further explanation on the previous material which had not been understood by the students. Finally, the researcher made a decision to cut the last part of exercises to be used for the next meeting. After all of the students finished their work, the researcher discussed the result with the students. Because the time was over, the researcher closed the lesson. She asked the students about the lesson in that day, about their feeling and understanding the lesson. After closing the lesson, the researcher left the room with the teacher as observer. commit to user b Observation of the third meeting More students did their homework to learn about the continuing material. In this meeting, the researcher continued to explain about recount text. After explaining recount text, she gave students some exercise. It was to find the synonym, rearrange a jumble paragraphs and completing some paragraphs. Because the time was limited, the researcher made a decision to cut the last part of exercises to the next meeting. So, they just did the first and second exercises. The students’ response was good and finished their work. The entire students were more interested to the lesson and doing the exercise well although some of them noisy. c Reflection of the third meeting In this meeting, the students more close to the researcher. It can be seen from the students’ action. They asked some question related to the exercise. Having been cut, the exercises in this meeting were done well by the students. Nevertheless, they needed more time to do the all of the exercises because they did the exercise slowly and little serious. 4 Fourth Meeting a Description The researcher came the class on 30 th April, 2010 at 09.15 a.m. After greeting and checking attendant list of the students, the researcher introduced the lesson. Then, some students predicted that the material must be difficult. She commit to user answered that she would help if they got some difficulties when doing the exercise. In this meeting she gave some essays exercise. It was to make supporting sentences in some paragraphs to explore the main idea of text to the students. The title of the text was “ International Women Exposed to Indonesian Wear ”. The exercise was different from that in the last meeting. In this exercise, students were made freer than in previous meeting although they still got the guidance from the researcher. Then, she gave a newspaper’s article which contained only the main idea and the students were commanded to continue it. The text was accompanied by some questions as clues to do this exercise. The researcher observed the students around the class and if any question from students she gave explanation which students’ need. Having finished their work, they collected their work to the researcher. In the end of the lesson, she explained why they discussed about recount text using the newspaper’s article in this lesson. She said that after all of the students got this material, they know that newspaper’s article is written by someone or individual. Although it contains the same news with the other newspaper, it is no guarantee the news is same. Because of the reason above, newspaper which contained a lot of news are included recount text. Because the time was over, the researcher and the teacher left the classroom. a Observation of the fourth meeting The students got an exercise from the researcher but freer than that in the last meeting. The exercise was she gave a newspaper’s article which contained only the main idea and the students were commanded to continue it. The text was commit to user accompanied by some questions as clues to do this exercise. In this exercise, students felt difficult to do it. They said that the exercise was harder than the once given in the previous meeting. They saw the difficulties in this exercise and some complained to the researcher. The researcher gave explanation to help the students and they tried to do as they can. b Reflection of the fourth meeting In this meeting students still found many difficulties to make support sentences exploring the main idea in some paragraphs of text because they did not do like this exercise before. The students should be given more exercise in the next meeting.

c. Revising the Plan